The Rudiments of Formal Logic: With Trees and Natural Deduction explores the formal structure of arguments in both sentential and first order predicate logic. Formal logic is the science of making valid inferences. As such, this book covers a variety of ways to demonstrate the validity of argument forms with emphasis given to truth trees and natural deduction.
The Rudiments of Formal Logic emphasizes and develops key concepts in formal logic such that it strikes a balance between being appropriate for those who are just wading into logic without much background and those who are looking to pursue formal logic beyond an introductory level course.
The first part of the publication focuses on developing skills in sentential logic including transcription, truth table analysis, truth trees and natural deduction.
The second part of the book re-visits transcription, truth trees and natural deduction in first order predicate logic.
Finally, the book concludes by introducing the identity predicate, which provides a point of departure for students looking to pursue formal logic on a deeper level.
Preface
Volume I
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Transcriptions
Chapter 3: Truth Tables
Chapter 4: Arguments with Truth Tables
Chapter 5: Truth Trees
Chapter 6: Complex Truth Trees
Chapter 7: Natural Deduction
Chapter 8: Complex Natural Deduction
Volume II
Chapter 9: Aristotelian Interlude
Chapter 10: Predicate Transcription
Chapter 11: Predicate Truth Trees
Chapter 12: Predicate Natural Deduction
Chapter 13: Identity
Evan
Kalkus
Evan is a licensed psychologist who moonlights as a lecturer at Rutgers University in the Department of Philosophy. He has been teaching logic for over a decade, and never seems to get bored of it.
John
Styles
John is a high school chemistry and physics teacher who one day decided to get a Ph.D. in philosophy. Armed with that degree, he's been teaching logic and philosophy classes at both the high school and college level for the past twenty years. He is grateful to his students at Schoharie Jr-Sr High School for regularly reminding him of the importance of developing rudimentary logic skills.